Reports of “Orange is the New Black”‘s cancellation were greatly exaggerated

I’ve complained about clickbait of the Buzzfeed and Upworthy variety an awful lot in the last couple of years, and I know I’m not alone. It’s silly, manipulative, least-common-denominator, and it lowers the discourse considerably. I’ve long felt that when this particular era of Internet culture passes, we’ll all be the better for it.

But say what you will about stuff like “What happened to this dog will blow your mind” and “30 things only ’80s kids from Sheboygan know.” At least they weren’t based on abject falsehoods.

This week alone, I’ve read that Orange is the New Black was suddenly canceled, that the city of Chicago was officially declared a war zone, and that dozens of people in Colorado died of marijuana overdoses.

None of those things are true; all were reported by “parody sites” that bill themselves as “satire.” But- as Emmett Rensin pointed out in the New Republic a few months ago- the Onion is satire; these sites are not, because they’re neither funny nor making any particular satirical point. Their business model is to use false news stories and false information to draw clicks, and hopefully go viral by getting readers to spread this untrue information.

And it has to stop. Facebook and Google should be doing everything they can with their algorithms to push this garbage to the bottom.

Look at the Orange is the New Black story, from a gutter site called Empire News, which I refuse to link to. It’s an official-looking news story claiming that this beloved, acclaimed series is no more, and that the first two seasons would be pulled from Netflix as well. The story also puts a quote in the mouth of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stating that he was canceling the show because “a woman’s place is in the home, in the kitchen, taking care of children.”

The story is obviously false, serving to bum out and outrage anyone who enjoys this wonderful program. But where’s the satire? How is it in any way funny? Hastings- unlike some Silicon Valley CEOs- has no reputation as a raging misogynist. What’s the point of attributing such an ugly quote to a real person? That quote is probably going to haunt the real-life Reed Hastings for years, even though he didn’t really say it.

This isn’t true, and isn’t funny. It’s not even a “prank” either- there’s no reveal. And it’s not even trolling- it’s way worse than that. It’s just grossly insidious and dishonest, both a crime against truth and against comedy. And the worst part is, it’s working- according to Gawker’s invaluable bullshit-debunking vertical Antiviral, the bogus piece had been shared more than 600,000 times as of this morning.

Fabricating information used to be cause of excommunication in journalism; not anymore, clearly. Klein is Stephen Glass, he is Jayson Blair. His publisher should have pulled the book.

Lying, of course, is nothing new, and neither are hoaxes. But it’s starting to appear that way too many of us are okay with this massive spreading of false information. Let’s put a stop to this. Before you share something on social media, check it. If something sounds “too good to check,” it probably is. And just because a piece of information supports your argument, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Just so if anyone is interested, the mentioned satire site’s link is http://www.empirenews.net. The headline on its main page is “Whole Foods Market Becomes First Company To Require Employees To Have Visible Tattoos” so as you can see, it’s really indistinguishable from a serious news site – that is, if you’re the type of person that would blame people for lying on the internet rather than “serious” journalists for not checking their sources.
Then again, if I’d be a writer for a website with “Apple” as its own category, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference either.

Brubeck

These websites are free to do whatever they like so long as they don’t break any laws.

Mindless click-bait articles are necessary to exist for the time being so that we – the collective society here on the internet – can learn not to immediately click and forward our faux-outrage to others.

These articles are necessary so people can learn not to believe everything that’s forwarded to them, and in turn, stop forwarding.